Wednesday, February 14, 2007

I love deadlines

Especially the "whooshing" noise they make as they go flying past.

The only thing worse than busting your butt to make deadline is when your editor decides to hold off a week without telling you. I didn't need to be making phone calls and doing research to the intensity I did if I had known I had another week. :grr:

I hadn't been running lately. I'm not sure why beyond a combination of dreading running on a treadmill and the extra bonus of doing so in front of that damn set of mirrors. But the other day I sucked it up, stopped making excuses and hopped on to run a solid 20 minutes at a 12 minute pace.

It felt good. In fact, it felt so good that last night I braved the meat market environment of the closer branch of the health club and did a solid 30 mnutes at a 12 minute pace. No playing with speeds, times or anything else. I just set the pace and time, threw my towel over the panel, put on the iPod and started running.

They say running is psychological, so I figured maybe it's time to think about applying psychology to my running.

Over the season I've been playing with training techniques. For example, I use different BPM mixes from DJ Steveboy to monitor speed and rhythm. Right now, because I've been running pretty exclusively on the treadmill, I'm trying to "reprogram" myself right now. I listen to the same album on the mill, Soulfarm's Unwind, to see if I can associate the music with the steady pace on the treadmill. My hope - and I will be testing this on the 25th - is that I will associate the pace with the music when I'm on the road. It's a technique called anchoring, associating two things together - or anchoring them - to create a predictable reaction.

If nothing else, it's an interesting experiment.

Today it's snowing and the kids are home from school. (C'mon people, it's New England, we should be able to handle a little snow.) I'll give a call over to the health club in a bit to see if there's yoga class, if so I'm braving the elements to head in. It's funny how I've grown to love my yoga classes and how happy I was when I realized my heels reach the floor on my downward facing dog and other moves I can now do that I couldn't a month ago.

If there's no yoga today then I'll probably head into the meat market to do some time on the treadmill there where I'll set the time for 40 minutes and a 12 minute pace.

2 comments:

So good to see you posting! I know life can get hectic but wanted to let you know we missed your posts. Keep up the good running! Yes running is SO psychological/mental. And the ONLY way I can run on a treadmill is if I have a headset on. Otherwise, forget it. Other than the treadmill, I won't wear a headset when I run. That's psychological for me too. Have a great week!